Ronin

If it wasn't for Robert De Niro, Ronin would go straight to video. With him, it goes straight down the drain. Essentially, a heist caper, with a League Of Gentlemen gang of hand-picked crooks, it is really an excuse to have a heck of a car chase through Paris, hopefully not too reminiscent of what happened the night the princess died.

The script is caked with clichés, including an ending stolen from Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. It seems the Irish are running the show, with Dierdre (Natascha McElhone) in charge of the lads and Seamus (Jonathan Pryce) piffling about like a nanny who has lost her pram. De Niro, Jean Reno, Sean Bean, Stellan (Breaking The Waves) Skarsgård and another bloke whose name escapes me have been brought to France to meet the lissome Dierdre.

She explains the job by not explaining it and discusses rates of pay, as if they didn't know already. They have to ambush a car (or cars) and retrieve an aluminium case. They aren't told what's in the case, or how many men are riding shotgun. The Oirish, it seems, are fully incompetent and yet these so-called experts (we never know the extent of their expertise) go along with it. "No questions, no answers," the narrator mumbles. "That's the business we're in." Oh, right!

The plot isn't worth the breath of a thought. Faced with B-picture cardboard, the actors make their stand. De Niro plays a renegade ex-CIA operative with deep conviction (he can't do otherwise). Reno has been typecast by Hollywood. He doesn't need to speak. McElhone has been asked to be a tree. She's good at it.